The Duchess of Windsor, born Bessie Wallis Warfield, moved into the three-story brownstone at 212 East Biddle Street with her mother in 1908. It was the first home they could call their own as they were dependent on the charity of wealthier relatives ever since Wallis鈥檚 father died shortly after her birth 12 years earlier. Little did she know that one of the three bedrooms would be for the man her mother planned to marry, John Freeman Rason. Wallis was crushed. She had envisioned a life of independence with her mother, free from relying on the financial help of others. Wallis threatened to run away, but reluctantly came to terms with her mother's decision.
The marriage was held in the parlor of their home on June 20, 1908. The climax of the wedding came when Wallis, perhaps out of spite, snuck off to the kitchen and dug her hands into the cake in search of the good-luck tokens hidden inside. When her mother and stepfather came into the kitchen and saw the ruined cake, they stood speechless. Suddenly, Mr. Rasin laughed, picked Wallis up, and twirled her in the air. This act of forgiveness touched the young Wallis, and she never gave her stepfather any more trouble.
Unfortunately, John Freeman Rasin died suddenly in 1913. Without the financial security of her stepfather, Wallis and Alice had to move out. They moved to a small apartment building called Earl's Court, at the corner of Preston and St. Paul streets.
Wallis went through two failed marriages before meeting Edward, Prince of Wales in 1931. In 1936, Edward became King Edward VIII of England, but abdicated the throne on December 10 of the same year to marry Wallis. Edward and Wallis were married on June 3, 1937, and remained so until Edward's death in 1972. Wallis died in Paris on April 24, 1986.
In 1937, Wallis' old home at 212 East Biddle Street was turned into a museum, but it was not a commercial success. The biggest hit of the museum was the bathtub. According to the museum's tour guide, Mrs. W.W. Matthews, nine out of ten visitors sat in the house's bathtub for good luck, including a bride and groom who sat in the tub while Mrs. Matthews took their picture.
In 1936, Sidney Friedman was riding a train to Baltimore and carrying a charcoal grill. Earlier that week, Friedman had dined at Ray's Steak House in Chicago and ate his very first charcoal-grilled steak. He'd never had anything like it. He asked the chefs how they made the steaks and immediately set out to get a grill of his own. When Sidney got back, he fired up the grill and started running the restaurants most iconic advertisement: "Cut your steak with a fork, else tear up the check and walk out."
The Chesapeake Restaurant had its beginnings in a deli established by Sidney's father, Morris Friedman, who immigrated to Baltimore in 1898. In 1913, he opened a gourmet deli under his name, and in 1933, after the end of Prohibition, he remodeled the deli and turned it into the Chesapeake Restaurant. The restaurant was in a prime location, only a couple blocks from Penn Station. It quickly became the go-to place for upscale Maryland seafood.
When Sidney took over and introduced the charcoal-grilled steaks a few years later, the popularity of the Chesapeake Restaurant continued to grow. According to him, the Chesapeake Restaurant was the first restaurant in Baltimore to serve a Caesar salad. In the 1950's, Sidney's younger brother Phillip took over after graduating from Cornell's School of Hotel Administration. In 1961, Phillip bought the Hasslinger's seafood restaurant next door, and the Chesapeake expanded from 29 seats to 300.
The Chesapeake Restaurant became one of the most expensive and exclusive restaurants in the city. It attracted all sorts of Baltimore celebrities, from newscasters to athletes. The massive restaurant featured a number of special lounges, including a room built as a shrine to Babe Ruth packed with memorabilia. The restaurant suffered a devastating fire in 1974 and continued operations until it went bankrupt in 1983. The family managed to purchase the restaurant back later that year, but could only stay afloat for another two years. The restaurant was sold at a foreclosure auction to Robert Sapero, and for the first time in 50 years, was no longer in the Friedman family's name.
Sapero's attempts to reboot the Chesapeake Restaurant failed and the building remained abandoned after 1989. Ultimately, Station North Development Partners LLC bought the building and a new restaurant opened there in 2013. The building is now occupied by the Pen & Quill Restaurant.
The Roland Water Tower was built in 1905 as a 211,000-gallon water tank to supply residents in Hampden and nearby neighborhoods. It was part of a complicated water supply system that included the Western Pumping Station at Druid Lake. The design by William J. Fizone is similar to the slightly larger West Arlington water tower built in the northwest section of the city.
The tower only served that purpose for a few years, however, and by 1930 the tower was taken out of service leaving a curious local landmark empty. Still the tower has endured as an icon for the nearby Roland Park community and local preservationists have organized the Friends of the Roland Water Tower to advocate for the restoration and reuse of the structure.
The Clifton Park Valve House on St. Lo Drive in Clifton Park is a magnificent Gothic revival stone and tile-roofed structure built between 1887 and 1888. It was built to house the machinery used in the operation of Lake Clifton, which was once part of the city鈥檚 water supply and was connected to Lake Montebello to the north by a 108-inch underground pipe. Large wheels were set underneath the floor of the Valve House to regulate the flow of water from Lake Montebello. Lake Clifton began to be filled and developed with Lake Clifton High School in 1962. No longer needed, the Valve House was abandoned at that time. Designed in the style of a small medieval cathedral, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. By then it was already in a state of disrepair and 91视频 first recognized it as endangered. Baltimore City owns the building, and in 2003 a private developer began plans for the restoration and reuse of the building. This effort did not mature, and the City continues to own the building.
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Built in 1899, the West Arlington Water Tower was originally used to supply water to the West Arlington neighborhood in northwest Baltimore just across the city line. The community developed quickly around it with the West Arlington Improvement Company building a new septic system and even a "portable school"鈥攍ater known by the nickname "The Chicken Coop"鈥攆or the scores of families moving into the area in the 1900s and 1910s.
In a 1916 feature on West Arlington, calling it the "Suburb of Many Happy Homes," the Baltimore Sun reflected on the water tower as a local landmark that "should not be overlooked," writing, "It is one of the most beautiful in Maryland and commands a fine view for miles over the country. From its top one can look for miles down the bay and see white-winged vessels drifting in the harbor." Next door stood a "handsome tower house" where local resident, Mrs. J.M. Crowley made and sold "all varieties of baskets and tray."
By the early 1930s, however, the tower had fallen into disuse and the city planned to demolish the structure in 1933. When funding for demolition never arrived the tower simply sat and has remained a landmark ever since.
The Shot Tower, when it was built in 1828, was the tallest structure in the United States until 1846. Once there were three such towers in Baltimore; now there are only a few left in the entire world. The design of the 215-foot tall Phoenix Shot Tower and its estimated 1.1 million bricks is based on Englishman William Watt鈥檚 1782 patented process of making shot by pouring molten lead through colanders down the open shaft of a high tower. As the molten lead spun and cooled in the air, it became 鈥減erfectly globular in form and smooth鈥 as was reported at the time. The 鈥渄rops鈥 were collected in a large water barrel at the tower鈥檚 base, then sorted by size and bagged for distribution. The finished product was called drop shot and was used for small game hunting, among other things. The Shot Tower annually produced 2.5 million pounds of it until 1892 when new methods of shot production made the Tower obsolete. In 1921, permits were granted to tear down the Tower and clear the site to make way for an automobile garage. In one of the first acts of historic preservation in Baltimore, public reaction against the demolition plans was strong, and leading citizens were able to raise funds for its preservation. On October 11, 1924, a group of Baltimore citizens bought the Shot Tower for $17,000 and donated it to the city with the understanding that it would be preserved. More than fifty years passed before the Shot Tower was opened to the public as a museum. In 1973, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today it is managed by Carroll Museums, a non-profit organization that also manages the Carroll Mansion on nearby Pratt Street.
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In 1919, the Governor of Maryland and the Mayor of Baltimore appointed a War Memorial Commission that initiated a nationwide architectural competition to design a memorial building dedicated to the 1,752 Marylanders who died in military service during WWI. The design for the monumental building that today faces Baltimore City Hall across War Memorial Plaza was executed by local architect Lawrence Hall Fowler.
A ground-breaking ceremony on November 22, 1921, was attended by Ferdinand Foch, Marshall of France and the cornerstone was laid on April 29, 1923 in a ceremony attended by Acting Secretary of War Colonel Dwight F. Davis, Governor Albert C. Ritchie, and Mayor William F. Broening. The War Memorial was dedicated on April 5, 1925.
The finished building featured a 1000-seat auditorium and a mural by Baltimore artist R. McGill Mackall, depicting, 'A Sacrifice to Patriotism.' In front of the building are two stone sea horses representing the "Might of America crossing the seas to aid our allies." The sculptor, Edmond R. Amateis, included in the statues the coats of arms for Maryland and the City of Baltimore.
The building was rededicated by Mayor William Donald Schaefer on November 6, 1977 as a memorial to the Marylanders who gave their lives in all wars with American involvement during the twentieth century. The War Memorial Building still houses administrative offices for local veterans organizations.
The 1833 McKim Free School building is one of Baltimore鈥檚 most important landmarks with deep roots in the city鈥檚 history and an unsurpassed 175 year record of education and social service. Founder John McKim came to Baltimore as a young man, established his business at Baltimore and Gay Street and became a successful merchant. During the War of 1812, McKim gave $50,000 to the City of Baltimore to aid in its defense, served as a State Senator, and was twice elected to Congress. His son William McKim who led the effort to realize his father鈥檚 vision of a free school did not live to see it as he died in 1834 at the age of 35. The building鈥檚 architects have deep connections to Baltimore. Son of Baltimore Revolutionary War hero John Eager Howard, William Howard was one of the first engineers to work for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and took up architecture as an avocation. William Small designed the Barnum鈥檚 City Hotel (demolished in 1889), the Archbishop鈥檚 Residence on North Charles Street, and more schools across the city. Since 1945, the McKim Center has continued to strengthen the importance of the building to many Baltimore residents as it remains a vital institution serving children and adults in need in the Jonestown community in innumerable ways. The McKim Center has its beginnings in 1924 when the Society of Friends offered the McKim Free School as a place of worship to an Italian Presbyterian congregation. This partnership between the Friends and Presbyterians led in 1945 to the start of the McKim Community Association offering youth programs, athletic training (particularly wrestling鈥攁ppropriate for a Greek Revival building) and a bible school. McKim鈥檚 renowned athletic programs have long outgrown the building but the structure remains in use, along with the nearby 1781 Old Quaker Meeting House, as a safe place for children, managed by the philosophy of 鈥淪tructure, Discipline and Love.鈥
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The Meetinghouse is the oldest surviving house of worship in Baltimore. Among those who worshipped here were Elisha Tyson, Johns Hopkins, Moses Sheppard, Phillip E. Thomas and the Tyson, Ellicott and McKim families.
In 1775, Patapsco Meeting, in what was then Baltimore County recorded that they wished to move their Meeting to Baltimore Town. By 1781, at the cost of $4,500, a new Meetinghouse had been erected at Fayette Street (then Pitt) and Aisquith Street (then Smock Alley). Designed by George Matthews, it has separate men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 entrances into a plain and spacious room with a high vaulted ceiling. Sliding wood paneling partitioned the room for Men鈥檚 and Women鈥檚 Business Meetings. It could be raised for Meetings for Worship or larger gatherings. There soon was a need to provide for the educational needs of the children of Friends. By 1784, Meeting records document the establishment of a committee to oversee a school which became what is now Baltimore Friends School. Baltimore Yearly Meeting was so well attended by the end of the century that in 1772 a thirty-acre tract of pasture land was purchased to accommodate the annual influx of Friends. By 1817, when the first gas lamp was slit at the corner of Baltimore & Holiday Streets, Baltimore had emerged as a center of trade and industry, and the need for a second Meetinghouse to the west resulted in the construction of Lombard Street Meeting in 1807. Restoration of this meetinghouse is 1967 cost about $50,000, through the joint efforts of the City of Baltimore and the McKim Community Association, Inc. under the leadership of mayor Theodore McKeldin and Philip Myers. The historic building was then administered and maintained by the Peale Museum, and leased to McKim for programs.
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Founded in 1799, Oldtown鈥檚 Independent Fire Company maintained their Independent No. 6 engine house at Gay and Ensor Streets for over fifty years. In 1853, the company tore down their original engine house and replaced it with the present home of the Baltimore City Fire Museum with its distinctive six story bell and clock tower. Designed by Baltimore architects Reasin and Weatherald, the firehouse is unique in Baltimore鈥檚 architecture. The 103-foot Italianate-Gothic tower was copied from Giotto鈥檚 campanile in Florence, Italy and features a cast iron 鈥渟keleton鈥濃攁n early example of this material in use for structural purposes. The newly formed Baltimore City Fire Department purchased the building in 1859 for $8,000, when it became known as Engine House No. 6. The firehouse鈥檚 apparatus was a steam engine weighing 8,600 pounds named, appropriately, the 鈥淒eluge.鈥 In 1893, all members of the City鈥檚 fire department were paid, which ended the grade of 鈥渃allman.鈥 This silenced firehouse bells, which were used to summon the callmen. Many bells were given to churches, but Engine 6 hung on to its bell and it became a source of pride to Oldtown鈥檚 citizens. Oldtown, on the east side of the Jones Falls, did not see damage from the Great Fire of 1904. Firemen pumped water from the Jones Falls to quell the advance of the flames鈥攁 move which saved east side landmarks such as the Phoenix Shot Tower. Engine House No. 6 also served as emergency hospital as the Sun reported at the time, 鈥淭he upper floor of the engine house resembled an army field hospital in war time, with its scores of brawny men with seared and blackened faces and their tattered remnants of blue uniforms.鈥 In 1970, the tower was restored and the station remained in active service until 1976, when the Oldtown Memorial Fire Station (now the Thomas J. Burke Fire Station) became the home of Engine 6. In 1979, the old station became the home of the Baltimore Fire Museum and the Box 414 Association.
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Located on Hillen Street, the Null House is a rare eighteenth century home dating from around 1782. Once common throughout the city, only a handful of these small wood frame houses remain, largely in Fells Point. Named for the antique shop that occupied the property from 1929 through the 1970s, the Null House itself was nearly demolished to make way for a parking lot but, in 1980, the property was thankfully relocated and preserved.
Originally located at 1010 Hillen Street, the house was east of the Jones Falls on land belonging to John Moale, Jr. (1731-1798), who in 1752 sketched the earliest view of the Town of Baltimore. The house was built between 1782 and 1784 for Stephen Bahon, a blacksmith around the same time the area east of the Jones Falls was annexed into Baltimore City. In 1784, it was purchased by Wolfgang Etschburger, a veteran of the American Revolution who later also served during the War of 1812. From about 1850 to 1880, the building was used to sell flour and meal; the Italianate storefront may date from this period. In the early twentieth century, the building was the headquarters of the Excelsior Printing Company. From 1929, it served as an antique shop run by the Null family until the 1970s.
The building almost met its demise in 1980 when Baltimore Gas and Electric Company wanted to raze the building for a parking lot. On September 28, 1980, the building was moved 300 feet diagonally across the street to its current location. The contractor who undertook the job was Teddy Rouse, son of famous developer James Rouse. The Null House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on January 27, 1983.
Once a bustling department store complex on North Gay Street, the Great House of Isaac Benesch and Sons has been vacant for over a decade as the Old Town Mall waits on the progress of long stalled revitalization efforts. Isaac Benesch started his business shortly after the Civil War with a furniture store operating out of a single rowhouse. In the 1880s, as dry goods dealers like Hutzler's built their 鈥済rand emporiums鈥 on the west side, Benesch acquired nearby rowhouses and began to rebuild them into a department store. By 1911, his business included three large 4-story buildings, dominating the 500 block of N. Gay Street. The store at 549-557 Old Town Mall, an Italianate brick building with large windows, still features an elegant copper sign band across the facade, proclaiming the 鈥淕reat House,鈥 perhaps added by Philadelphia architect Louis Levi in 1914. Next door at 565-571 North Gay Street is a four story, two bay Renaissance Revival building, of brick with terra cotta ornamentation designed by architect Charles E. Cassell and built in 1904 by William H. Porter. Cassell had a long list of major projects in Baltimore, including the grand Stewart鈥檚 Department Store at Howard and Lexington Streets, built in 1900. Benesch鈥檚 likely hoped Cassell could bring the same architectural magnificence to his work on the east side. More buildings went up in the 1920s with a warehouse at 600 Aisquith Street by the J.L. Robinson Construction Company, virtually unchanged from its 1925 construction. Unlike those westside department stores, however, Isaac Benesch established an early reputation for serving all customers鈥攂lack and white. One 1898 account from the聽Afro-American聽newspaper stated, 鈥淚saac Benesch & Sons very much appreciate the large volume of colored trade which they have, coming from all parts of the city.鈥 In 1926, when few department stores hired African Americans as salesmen, Benesch hired Josh Mitchell to sell automobile tires鈥攁nd featured him in advertisements. In the 1940s, the Afro-American gave Benesch an 鈥渙rchid鈥 for 鈥渟erving all alike.鈥 In the 1970s, several of the original buildings were demolished as the block was redeveloped for the pedestrian-only 鈥淥ld Town Mall.鈥 The Great House had closed a few years earlier, in the early 1960s, and was run as Kaufman鈥檚 Department Store until 1997.
Built in the 1830s, the 600 block of Stirling Street was home to free working people, both African-American and white, living in modest Federal style rowhouses. Some residents worked in the industrial and commercial businesses that grew up around the nearby Jones Falls鈥攕awyers, carters, cigarmakers, and tailors. Nearly 180 years later, these houses appear much as they did to their original inhabitants. By the 1960s, like much of Oldtown, the houses of Stirling Street had fallen into disrepair. As part of an urban renewal project to repurpose the Gay Street commercial corridor into a pedestrian mall, the Baltimore Urban Renewal Agency planned to raze Stirling Street, along with 97% of Oldtown鈥檚 housing. Local preservationists, led by state Senator Julian Lapides and Peale Museum director Wilbur Hunter, launched a campaign to preserve the buildings. Senator Lapides led a bus tour, bringing residents of Stirling Street to see well-preserved historic homes on Baltimore鈥檚 Tyson Street and Seton Hill. Hunter provided research to refute the claim that the rowhouses should be demolished because they were 鈥渟lave鈥檚 quarters鈥 and to prove their historic value. One afternoon in October 1972, over hamburgers at the office of Housing and Community Development Commissioner Robert Embry, Jr., Julian Lapides and his wife persuaded Embry to allow them to find a way to save the houses. Embry agreed, providing Lapides could show there was an economically feasible way to do so. After a consultant with a national reputation in historic preservation offered to buy and develop the entire block, Embry relented. The houses were offered for $1.00 to individuals who agreed to undertake the expense of restoring the houses. This 鈥渦rban homesteading" project was one of the first in the nation. The 24 owners were selected from over 400 applicants, mostly young professionals, both African-American and white and all true urban pioneers. The Old Town Mall project was dedicated in June 1976. Though Old Town Mall has suffered serious decline, Stirling Street, restored around the same time, remains pristine and well kept, a testament to the power of historic preservation. As Senator Lapides wrote in 1974:
鈥淭he Stirling Street narrative contains a valuable lesson for city administrators: people are willing to return to the city and invest in its future when given the opportunity of restoration.鈥
The Stafford was once an elegant hotel serving the elite of Baltimore and the many high-profile figures visiting the city. The hotel was designed by founding member of the Baltimore AIA chapter Charles E. Cassell and when it opened in 1894, it was the tallest building in Mt. Vernon. The entrance opened up to a highly ornamented hallway tiled with Romanesque designs. According to the Baltimore Sun, the ceilings were relieved with elaborate friezes and bordered with flecks of gold. The hotel also had a specified ladies parlor on the second floor for women traveling alone complete with a writing room and a cafe.
Over time, the Stafford Hotel was visited by dignitaries, movie stars, musicians, and famous writers. It was a favorite hotel of Katharine Hepburn and opera star Rosa Ponselle who would come to the hotel to get fitted by traveling English tailors. The Stafford was also the last place where F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in Baltimore before moving to Hollywood.
Perhaps the most interesting place in the Stafford Hotel was the bar overlooking the statue of Revolutionary War hero John Eager Howard. The bar was known across town as being highly exclusive. Only the most esteemed guests were served drinks and even then they had to woo the bartender. On one particular night on December 26, 1936, F. Scott Fitzgerald got the attention of many of the bar's patrons after racking up a $22.36 tab, a figure that would amount to about $370 today.
The Stafford Hotel fell on hard times after it closed in 1973 and was turned into federally subsidized apartments. By the turn of the twenty-first century it had become a seedy center for prostitution and drugs. Johns Hopkins University acquired the building in 2002 thanks to legislation that made it possible to turn federally subsidized housing into student housing. Now the Stafford Hotel serves as apartments exclusively for Johns Hopkins and Peabody students.
In 1885, Baltimore City set out to build the most beautiful Courthouse in the country. Fifteen years, and $2.2 million later ($56 million adjusted for inflation), that goal was realized. On January 6, 1900, the Baltimore Sun reported that the City of Baltimore had built a 鈥渢emple of justice, second to no other in the world.鈥 The building, which is a magnificent exemplification of Renaissance Revival architecture, continues to stand as a monument to the progress of the great city of Baltimore, and to the importance of the rule of law. Today, this main building in the Baltimore City Circuit Court complex is referred to as the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse in honor of the local lawyer and nationally respected civil rights leader. Most of the original splendor of this massive building can still be enjoyed, including the granite foundation, marble facades, huge brass doors, mosaic tiled floors, mahogany paneling, two of the world鈥檚 most beautiful courtrooms, domed art skylights, gigantic marble columns, and beautifully painted murals. In addition, the Courthouse is home to one of the oldest private law libraries in the country, and to the Museum of Baltimore Legal History. The exterior foundation of the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse was built from granite quarried in Howard County, while the exterior walls are crafted from white marble quarried in Baltimore County. The Calvert Street exterior fa莽ade is especially outstanding, as it displays eight of the largest monolithic columns in the world, each weighing over 35 tons and measuring over 35 feet in height. The interior of the building is even more impressive. Among the many historic spaces, the Supreme Bench Courtroom is one of the finest. The circular courtroom is like no other in the world. It is surmounted by a coffered dome resting upon sixteen columns of Sienna marble from the Vatican Quarry in Rome. Inscribed upon the frieze around the base of the dome are the names of Maryland鈥檚 early legal legends. Other fascinating rooms include the Old Orphans Courtroom (which houses the Museum of Baltimore Legal History); the Ceremonial Courtroom, and the Bar Library (described as one of the most elegant interior spaces in Baltimore, with its paneled English oak walls and barrel-vault ceiling punctuated by forty art glass skylights). Also noteworthy for its artistic beauty are the two domed stained-glass skylights above the stairs in Kaplan Court which depict the goddesses of Justice, Mercy, Religion, Truth, Courage, Literature, Logic and Peace. In addition, the courthouse has six original murals from world renowned artists depicting various civic and religious scenes. Those murals include: Calvert鈥檚 Treaty with the Indians; The Burning of the Peggy Stewart; Washington Surrenders His Commission; Religious Toleration; The Ancient Lawgivers; and The British Surrender at Yorktown.
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Few places demonstrate the radical transformation of the Baltimore waterfront from the early nineteenth century through the present as vividly as the site of the Battery Babock, a short distance south of where Fort Look-Out once stood in Riverside Park. The area of the battery is marked by a small memorial鈥攁 6-pounder cannon mounted on a granite base erected during the centennial celebrations in 1914. The canon sits between the Gould Street Generating Station built in 1907 and the elevated roadway of I-95, cutting the area off from the Pataspco which served as the route of the British attack nearly 200 years ago.
In May 1813, Maj. General Samuel Smith, who commanded the defenses of Baltimore and went on to serve as a U.S. Senator and Baltimore Mayor, declared it 鈥渁bsolutely necessary to erect a small Battery鈥 along the edge of the Patapsco Ferry Branch. The United States government, however, proved unwilling to pay for the new installation. The City of Baltimore then moved to pay for Captain Samuel Babcock of the U.S. Engineers to design the battery and direct twenty or thirty men in digging the foundation.
Battery Babcock, also known as the Six Gun Battery or the Sailor鈥檚 Battery, was made of sod and laid out in an arc facing towards the water. Construction was complete by summer 1813 and a company of U.S. Sea Fencibles under Capt. William H. Addison garrisoned at the site. By the fall 1814, the battery was manned by seventy-five sailors from the U.S. Chesapeake Flotilla, a collection of barges and gunboats organized by privateer Captain Joshua Barney who had been forced to scuttle their fleet just a few weeks before. Sailing Master John Adams Webster (1786-1877), who commanded the battery at the time and subsequently left an account in 1853, opens a window onto the night when Battery Babcock, together with Forts Covington and Fort McHenry, repulsed a British barge offensive on Baltimore:
鈥溾ay and night we were on the alert, until hope was nearly extinct, when on the night of the 13th, about eleven o鈥檆lock, the bomb vessels appeared to renew their fire with redoubled energy. It was raining quite fast, and cold for the season. The rapid discharge of the bombs from the enemy鈥檚 shipping excited great vigilance among my officers and men. I had the cannon double shotted with 18-pound balls and grape shot and took a blanket and laid on the breastworks, as I was much exhausted. About midnight I could hear a splashing in the water. The attention of the others was aroused and we were convinced it was the noise of the muffled oars of the British barges. Very soon afterwards we could discern small gleaming lights in different places. I felt sure then that it was the barges, which at that time were not more than two hundred yards off鈥︹
Canons along the Patapsco opened fire and caught the British flotilla in a cross-fire, destroying two of the barges. Captain Charles Napier, RN who commanded the British flotilla soon called for a retreat.
The American Building was home to Baltimore News-American, a newspaper that traces its lineage back to 1773.
As opposed to the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore News-American was an afternoon newspaper targeted to working class and blue-collar districts. One of the newspaper鈥檚 many editors was John L. Carey. He was deeply interested in the question of slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War and felt that the two races could never live in peace and offered up the solution to re-settle all enslaved people in Africa. The Baltimore News-American would survive for two hundred years, until its final issue on May 27th, 1986.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the buildings of the Baltimore Sun and Baltimore-News American faced each other at the intersection of South Gay Street and East Baltimore Street. It was one of the most bustling areas of the city, filled with newsies passing out papers and bulletin boards posting the latest news. During elections, the intersection would be packed with massive crowds of people, all waiting to hear the results.
The original Baltimore News-American Building was destroyed by the Great Baltimore Fire and a new towering office, designed by Baltimore native Louis Levi, was built in 1905 by the George A. Fuller Company. The main contractor for the News American Building was Paul Starrett who later went on to be take a leading role in the erection of the Empire State Building.
The Vickers Building represents a shift in downtown Baltimore architectural design that occurred directly after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 and is one of the largest buildings to utilize brick as a primary material in the Central Business District. Most of the other buildings rebuilt in the area were made of stone. Masonry was popular after the Great Fire because of fireproofing concerns. Before the Great Fire, many buildings (including the old Vickers Building the new one replaced) were built in the ornate Second Empire style and featured sloping Mansard roofs and complex architectural details. This changed after the Great Fire. Architects took a more pragmatic approach to rebuilding the Central Business district and were pressured to create buildings that were cost-efficient, fire safe, and could be erected quickly. Because of all the national attention after the Fire, the city wanted to show the rest of the country its stability and they wanted to do it quickly. The permit for the Vickers Building was issued on May 19, 1904, only three months after the fire. Many of the building鈥檚 properties indicate fire-conscious planning: it鈥檚 made of brick; it has a flat roof because people believed spacious Mansard roof attics contributed to the spread of the Fire; and the bay windows recede into the building rather than protrude outwards. Not all ornamentation was eschewed from the construction of the Vickers Building. Stone lion heads adorn the topmost bay windows and a band of terra cotta runs along the street facing side of the roof. The interior is home to Werner鈥檚 Restaurant: a mainstay in the area since 1951.
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Robert Garrett was the original owner of the thirteen-story Garrett Building. Among other things, Garrett was a banker, Olympian, collector of medieval manuscripts, and a leader in the development of recreational facilities in Baltimore. He was a participant in the first modern Olympic games in 1896. He paid for three of his Princeton classmates to make the trip and they all took home medals, much to the displeasure of the Greeks. Garrett in particular specialized in the shot put but also decided to try the discus throw for fun after realizing the discus only weighed five pounds. Unlike the Greek discus throwers who implemented the graceful throwing techniques of antiquity, Garrett appropriated the crude, brute force style of shot put throwing to the sport. Despite narrowly missing audience members on his first two throws, his final throw was spot-on and won him the gold. He also took home the gold in shot put. Garrett built 233 East Redwood Street in 1913 with the Baltimore architecture firm Wyatt and Nolting. The limestone faced skyscraper is as striking on the inside as the outside. The lobby is donned with marble walls and columns. Garrett could never turn away from his love of athletics, not even at work. He commissioned a swimming pool and gymnasium for the upper floors. The building is now home to the Gordon Feinblatt law firm.
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This small building sits squarely inside the area decimated by the Great Baltimore Fire and surprisingly survived. It was built in 1901 for Alex Brown and Sons: the oldest investment banking firm in the United States. Noted architecture firm Parker and Thomas designed the building. The stained-glass dome inside is thought to be the work of Gustave Baumstark.
Alex Brown and sons was founded in 1800 and stayed in independent operation for almost 200 years. In 1997, it was acquired by Bankers Trust and was ultimately integrated into Deutsche Bank.
The Alex Brown and Sons Building owes its survival of the Great Fire to its small size. As sparks and embers flew through the air igniting the much taller buildings all around it, a thermal updraft acted as a sort of fan keeping the flying flames from landing on the building鈥檚 roof. The heat of the fire was so intense that it caused the brownstone to crack apart near the front door. The broken stone is still visible, since the Alex Brown and Sons firm choose not to replace the cracked stone as a reminder of what almost happened. The building was renovated in 1996 and reopened as a bank, which it remained until 2016. A restaurant opened on the location in 2019, but had to close in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic.
The Zion Lutheran Church is a piece of German-American history that dates back to 1755. Originally known as the German Lutheran Reformed Church, it served Lutheran immigrants coming from Germany. The congregation held services in private residences for the first seven years.
The original church was erected in 1762 on Fish Street (now Saratoga Street), a block away from their current site. The number of worshipers grew rapidly over the years and by 1808 the first building on the current church grounds was completed. It is one of only a few buildings standing that predates the War of 1812 and is the oldest Neo-Gothic style church in the United States. Between 1912 and 1913, the church completed several additions including the Parish House, bell tower, parsonage, and garden.
The church possesses a number of historical artifacts including a piece of the Berlin Wall and plaques dedicated to the members of the church who died in WWI and WWII. The church boasts an impressive collection of stained glass. A number of the windows celebrate German heritage and achievements. The Industry Window in the Sanctuary Entrance has an image of the linotype in the bottom-right corner, a device invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in Baltimore.
The Zion Lutheran Church currently provides services in both German and English, making it the oldest church in the United States that has maintained uninterrupted services in German and the only church in Maryland to offer a service in German.
with research support from Historic American Building Survey
Built in the aftermath of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, the Gayety Theatre opened on February 5, 1906鈥攎aking this building the oldest remaining burlesque theater in Baltimore. While the theatre interior was subdivided into three separate spaces in 1985, the Gayety still boasts an elaborate, eye-catching, and fanciful fa莽ade (designed by architect John Bailey McElfatrick) that is a wonderful example of the exuberance of theater design in the period.
The Gayety is the venerable keystone of 鈥淭he Block鈥 on Baltimore Street long known as a destination for adult entertainment. 鈥淭he Block鈥 is somewhat of a misnomer, as the area of arcades, bars, burlesque houses and adult bookshops extended east along Baltimore Street from Calvert Street for approximately eight blocks in the middle third of the 20th century. Due to various cultural forces, and particularly to a concerted 鈥渁nti-smut鈥 campaign during the mayoral tenure of William Donald Schaefer in the early 1980s, most of this extensive commercial sub-cultural landscape no longer exists, and 鈥渢he Block鈥 is, in fact, a small representative of a once-thriving red-light district.
The Gayety began after the Great Baltimore Fire destroyed the offices of The German Correspondent. While some downtown theatres moved to Howard Street after the fire, The Gayety, Lubin鈥檚 Nickelodeon and Vaudeville 鈥渄uplex鈥 directly across the street, The Victoria (later known as The Embassy) and The Rivoli all remained in the area and defined this stretch of Baltimore Street as a 鈥減opular entertainment鈥 center, with an emphasis on burlesque and vaudeville. Despite the connotations acquired later, burlesque and vaudeville were mainstream forms of entertainment aimed at the working and middle classes.
By World War I, the Gayety鈥檚 neighbors had made the switch to showing movies. In the 1920s and 1930s, cinema began to supplant burlesque and, especially, vaudeville as the chief form of low-cost popular entertainment across the United States. Burlesque houses, such as The Gayety, promoted more risqu茅 acts in the effort to give the public something that they couldn鈥檛 get in movies, especially after the adoption of the Hayes production code in 1932, which not only banned nudity but placed Draconian restrictions on sexual content and references in film.
From its heyday in the 1910s and 1920s鈥攚hen The Gayety鈥檚 bill included nationally prominent comedians such as Abbott and Costello, Phil Silvers, Jackie Gleason and Red Skelton鈥攖he Gayety was a 鈥渢op-of-the-line鈥 burlesque house. In this period (just before and after World War II) iconic strippers such as Gypsy Rose Lee, Blaze Starr, Sally Rand, Valerie Parks and Ann Corio performed there. Following the Second World War, more arcades, as well as adult bookshops, peep shows and show bars cropped up to fill in the vacant spaces and gradually redefined East Baltimore Street as a 鈥渞ed light district,鈥 analogous to New York鈥檚 Times Square, Washington, DC鈥檚 14th Street and New Orleans鈥檚 legendary Bourbon Street. By the 1960s, The Gayety no longer hosted headline performers, and local news features surrounding the cataclysmic fire in 1969 tended to emphasize nostalgia for its decline. In this sense, The Gayety Theater Building encapsulates the history of burlesque as an entertainment form and its interaction with civic form in the 20th century United States.
Nostalgic descriptions of performances at The Gayety and its peers indicate that, by today鈥檚 standards, the performances were quite modest. However, the aura of taboo was a large part of what sustained burlesque in general, and The Gayety in particular, through the mid-twentieth century.
A slice of English architecture, the Furness House was built in 1917 by architect Edward H. Glidden. Glidden also designed the Washington Place Apartments in Mount Vernon and the Marlboro Apartments on Eutaw Place (home to the famed art-collecting Cone sisters). The Furness House was built as offices for an English steamship line and named after shipping entrepreneur Christopher Furness. The building is an example of the English Palladian style, which has roots in Italian architecture, particularly the works of Andrea Palladio. It features a large Venetian window and looks like many commercial building built in England built around the same time. The Furness House was renovated in the 1990s and operates today as a conference center.
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The highly ornamented Mercantile Trust Building was constructed in 1885 by architectural firm Wyatt and Sperry. The architecture conveys a sense of impenetrability, characterized by its massive, heavy stonework and deep set windows and entrance. Ads at the time boasted that the building strong enough "to resist the invasion of armed force." The hardened building survived the 1904 Baltimore Fire, but sustained damage when bricks from the Continental Trust Building fell through the skylight, setting fire to the interior. Despite this, the building's survival reaffirmed what the bank had been saying all along in its ads. The Mercantile Trust was Baltimore's first "department store bank," a concept spearheaded by Enoch Pratt. In years before, customers had to go to different banks to get loans, access savings, or open a checking account. Mercantile Trust ended this by introducing Baltimore to one-stop banking. The bank was also involved in raising capital to rebuild many cities in the South during Reconstruction. Later, the bank acted as co-executor for the estate of Henry Walters and as a trustee for the endowment that established the Walters Art Collection. Mercantile Trust occupied the building for almost 100 years. The company left in 1983 and the building has been a nightclub, and more recently, the new location of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company.
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Dashiell Hammett found inspiration for his great detective novels like "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Thin Man" by working at the Pinkerton Detective Agency in what was then known as the Continental Trust Building. He experienced the seedy underbelly of Baltimore city and was stabbed at least once on the job. He was inspired by his intransigent co-workers who served as the foundation for many of his cherished characters. Continental Op, the main character of his first novel, "Red Harvest," was named after the eponymous building. It is also speculated that the falcons that don the Continental Trust Building served as the inspiration for "The Maltese Falcon." "Red Harvest" was a milestone in the detective novel genre. It introduced the world to the hard-nosed detective who lives by his own code. The gritty streets of Baltimore served as the setting for Hammett's personal favorite novel, "The Glass Key," as well as "The Assistant Murderer." Unfortunately, many of the locations described in Hammett's novels no longer exist. The lavish Rennert Hotel, which served as the home base for the corrupt political boss in "The Glass Key" was razed in 1941. Continental Op in "Red Harvest" dreams about a tumbling fountain in Harlem Square Park that was filled in long ago. Hammett was born in Saint Mary's County, Maryland and spent his childhood bouncing between Baltimore and Philadelphia. He started working at Pinkertons in 1915 before serving in World War I in the Motor Ambulance Corps. He soon contracted tuberculosis and was moved to a hospital in Tacoma, Washington. Throughout the 1920's, Hammett lived in San Francisco where he wrote most of his novels, including "The Maltese Falcon." He never forgot his Baltimore roots working for Pinkertons, and his precise memory of streets and locations added a layer of authenticity and realism to his work. Later in life, Hammett got involved with the American Communist Party and was eventually jailed as a result of McCarthyism in 1951 for six months. Jail time took its toll on Hammett, who was already in bad health due to the effect his heavy smoking and drinking had on his tuberculosis. He died in New York in 1961. Today, the Continental Trust Building that housed the Pinkerton Detective Agency is known as One Calvert Plaza. A prominent survivor of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, One Calvert Plaza stands as a monument to skyscraper architecture at the turn of the twentieth century.
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Originally the summer home of industrialist and abolitionist Elisha Tyson in the early 1800s, 732 Pacific Street is a classic Federal style house built with native granite two feet thick. Among many other accomplishments, Tyson helped finance the very profitable Falls Road Turnpike in 1805 and reportedly established safe houses for runaway slaves along the route.
The building on Pacific Street was later owned by the Mount Vernon Mill Company and used as a superintendent鈥檚 house for the mill complex. Robyn Lyles and Mark Thistle (also a 91视频 board member) purchased the house in 2005 and finished renovations in 2009. The rehab project included archeology work by the University of Maryland, painstakingly saving windows including the original antique glass, and disassembling and reassembling the porch to save the original materials. 13,000 hours of work later, the finished product is a masterpiece of historic preservation.
Fort Carroll is a 3.4 acre artificial island and abandoned fort located within the shadow of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The fort was designed by then Brevet-Colonel Robert E. Lee, and construction was started in 1848 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under Lee鈥檚 supervision. The fort was named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence. Before it was created, the only military defensive structure between Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay was Fort McHenry. Additionally, a lighthouse (now abandoned) was built to aid navigation into Baltimore鈥檚 harbor.
Though never completed and never used as a fort, the architecture is quite amazing, featuring curved granite stairs, brick archways, etc. It originally had 350 cannon ports, a blacksmith shop, carpentry shop, and a caretaker's House. In 1864, it was flooded by torrential rains and declared vulnerable and obsolete. Subsequent uses of the fort included storing mines during the Spanish-American War, holding seamen, and as a pistol range. Most of the steel was salvaged for the war effort and the government abandoned the fort in 1920.
While there have been plans over the past ninety years to redevelop the site, nothing was able to come to fruition and it has fallen into extreme disrepair.
One of the thirty original Anglican parishes in Maryland, St. Paul's parish has been a fixture of Baltimore since the city's incorporation. Many influential citizens attended this church, including George Armistead.
Old St. Paul鈥檚 Church is known as the mother church of all Episcopal congregations in Baltimore. As one of the thirty original Anglican parishes that the General Assembly created under the Establishment Act of 1692, St. Paul鈥檚 (also known as Patapsco) Parish covered the sparsely populated area between the Middle River and Anne Arundel County from the colony鈥檚 northern border to the Chesapeake Bay. In 1702, worshippers began meeting near Colgate Creek鈥攖he same Baltimore County peninsula that saw the Battle of North Point in 1814.
The parish relocated to the the newly incorporated Baltimore Town in 1731. Church leaders selected lot 19 on a hill overlooking the harbor where the church still remains today. St. Paul鈥檚 is distinguished as the only property that has remained under its original ownership since the founding of Baltimore. By the late eighteenth century, St. Paul鈥檚 counted among its members some of the most powerful men in Maryland. St. Paul鈥檚 worshippers included Declaration of Independence signer and Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase (whose father Thomas Chase served as the church鈥檚 rector in the mid-eighteenth century); Revolutionary War officer and governor, congressman, and slaveholder John Eager Howard; Thomas Johnson, a delegate to the Continental Congress and Maryland鈥檚 first governor; and George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore.
By 1814, the congregation had been meeting for over 120 years. Rev. Dr. James Kemp served as rector, a position he had held since November 1812. Nineteenth century local historian John T. Scharf described Kemp as 鈥渁 man of high literary and scientific culture, and an author of much repute.鈥 The parish began construction on a new neoclassical building, designed by Robert Cary Long, Sr., in May 1814 just a few months before the British attack on the city. Completed in 1817, the new St. Paul鈥檚 stood up until 1854 when a fire destroyed the building. Scharf noted that 鈥渢he steeple was considered the handsomest in the United States.鈥 The congregation rebuilt on the same lot, commissioning Richard Upjohn to design a new church built between 1854 and 1856. The striking structure on North Charles Street has remained a landmark for generations of Baltimoreans.
Beyond fulfilling a spiritual mission in the city, St. Paul鈥檚鈥攍ike many other churches of the day鈥攈as also provided social services. The church established the Benevolent Society for Educating and Supporting Female Children (also known as the Female Charity School) in 1799. The school sought to prepare orphans and underprivileged girls ages eight and above 鈥渢o be valuable and happy members of society.鈥 Charles Varle鈥檚 1833 book described the society as having thirty 鈥渋nmates鈥 who were fed, clothed, and educated in a building attached to the church.
Founded in 1824, St. James鈥 Episcopal Church is the nation鈥檚 second oldest African Episcopal congregation and the first Episcopal church organized by African Americans south of the Mason-Dixon line. Since 1932, the congregation has occupied a historic sanctuary at the northeast corner of Lafayette Square Park in West Baltimore.
Built for the Episcopal Church of the Ascension from quarry-faced, white, Beaver Dam marble, the building was designed by the Baltimore architecture firm of Hutton & Murdoch. In 1866, the church left their original 1840 building on Lexington Street near Pine for a corner lot in what was then one of Baltimore鈥檚 emerging, fashionable neighborhoods. The structure is sparingly ornamented on the exterior, relying mostly on texture, repetition, a limited repertory of Gothic revival architectural motifs (buttresses, pointed arches, a rose or 鈥渨heel鈥 window, and stained glass), and a massive gable roof to communicate a sense of religiosity and permanence. The building originally featured a wood-framed spire atop its northwest tower rising to a height of 120 feet. In 1876, the church added on a parish house designed by architect Frank E. Davis which shows a keen sensitivity to Hutton & Murdoch鈥檚 1867 Gothic revival design.
In 1932, the Church of the Ascension sold the building and St. James鈥 Episcopal Church, then led by Rev. George Bragg, moved to Lafayette Square. Rev. Bragg may be little-known by most Baltimoreans today, but he served as pastor of St. James Church for over forty years. His visionary leadership of St. James is matched by his legacy as a co-founder of the Afro-American newspaper, as well as an historian and a political advocate. His life and work reflected the growing strength of Baltimore鈥檚 black community in the early 1900s.
Born in North Carolina on January 25, 1863, George Freeman Bragg's early years were shaped by the Civil War and Reconstruction. Ordained as a deacon in Virginia in 1887, Bragg entered the priesthood in 1888 and arrived in Baltimore in 1891 with a passion for fostering independent leadership within the black church. He joined the 66-year old St. James鈥 Church that was then located downtown at Saratoga Street and Guilford Avenue.
In 1901, Bragg led his church to a new building in northwest Baltimore at Park Avenue and Preston Street. When middle-class African Americans in his congregation continued to move even farther west, Bragg moved St. James again to Lafayette Square in 1932 where they celebrated their first service on Easter morning. The move reflected a major change in the neighborhood as four African American congregations moved to Lafayette Square between 1928 and 1934. Rev. Bragg lived on the Square and remained active in the city鈥檚 political and civic life until his death in 1940.
James Mosher Elementary (#144) was built in 1933. The original brick structure, facing Wheeler Avenue, was constructed in simple Art Deco style. In an era of segregation, it was designated a 鈥渨hite鈥 school; children still were required to travel outside the neighborhood for junior high and high school. In the early 1950s, Baltimore school officials were described as stunned by the scale and pace of racial change on the west side. A September 1952, Sun article reported a spokesperson as saying that 鈥淏altimore never has known anything such as the population shift within the summer months.鈥 The reporter went on to write:
鈥淭he ingress of Negro home owners and dwellers in hitherto white neighborhoods in northwest and northeast Baltimore during the summer months has presented a problem which is bound to perplex the School Board until some kind of relief can be obtained either through construction of new facilities or through the use of portables.鈥School #144 was specifically identified as one of several schools where there had been 鈥渢remendous turnover鈥 from white to black. By 1953 James Mosher鈥揵y then designated officially as a 鈥渃olored鈥 school鈥搘as reported to be tremendously overcrowded. In 1954, immediately following the Supreme Court ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional, Baltimore public schools became the first formerly segregated major urban system to adopt a desegregation policy. The change had little practical effect on schools already virtually all-black, like James Mosher. In 1955 a much-needed addition was completed along Mosher Street in contemporary architectural style. By then school enrollment had surpassed 900, up from less than 400 a few years earlier. Two new schools, built nearby in the 1960s, provided further evidence of the dramatic growth in the area鈥檚 school-age population. In 1960, Calverton Junior High was constructed on the western edge of the neighborhood. The massive complex housed four nearly self-contained units, each conceived as a 鈥渟chool within a school.鈥 In 1963, Lafayette Elementary School was built, also on the west side. It closed as a standard elementary school in 2003 and reopened as the Empowerment Academy, a public charter school.